Time to sever ties with Peter Thiel? Silicon Valley fights over his donation to Donald Trump

Should companies and organizations associated with Thiel, a major investor, entrepreneur and adviser, not just back away from him but sever ties?

And if these entities refuse to boot Thiel, should consumers, job candidates, partners and others end their relationship with them?

Thiel sits on Facebook’s board and is a part-time adviser to Y Combinator. He also co-founded PayPal, the online payments company, and Palantir, a big data private firm. As a co-founder of Founder’s Fund, a venture firm, Thiel is probably one of the most connected tech industry VIPs.

Amid calls to boycott PayPal, some have asked whether Facebook and Y Combinator should end their relationship with Thiel.

Sam Altman of Y Combinator took to Twitter to defend his organization’s decision to keep its relationship with Thiel:

3) Thiel is a high profile supporter of Trump. I disagree with this. YC is not going to fire someone for supporting a major party nominee.

Some are arguing that people should distance themselves from organizations and companies that say they won’t boot Thiel.

On Monday, in a post on Medium, Ellen Pao, the former interim CEO of Reddit, said her new organization Project Include is going to cut ties with Y Combinator over its connection with Thiel:

Because of his continued connection to YC, we are compelled to break off our relationship with YC. We hope this situation changes, and that we are both willing to move forward together in the future. Today it is clear to us that our values are not aligned.

Some called for Facebook to remove Thiel from its board:

Would like to see no women or people of color — heck, maybe white men too — accept jobs at Facebook until Thiel is gone.

Hey Michelle: got to make sure everyone is thinking the “correct thoughts,” right?

We know that Hillary Clinton is corrupt, and has already compromised national security with her email server setup. Better to chance on someone else.

Arthur Stepanyan

Bravo, Roger!
Politcorrectness is a noose on the throat of democracy.

SondraL

Wow! I knew Silicon Valley had an autocratic bent, but when did it become a dictatorship? That you can’t support a candidate of your choosing??!!

Michael Schoendorf

If Hillarity gets in you freedoms will be limited and pocketbook attacked. She is the most corrupt person to ever run. And if you really wanted to get rid of people in the Valley who don’t contribute start with Meg Whitman, I worked at HP for 30 years for the second smartest person they ever hired, Len Cutler (Barney Oliver was the smartest). She doesn’t have a clue of what to do. America TRiUMPhs with Trump.